#12 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[TootyFrooty]

Can someone please explain why A is wrong?
I chose A because it seemed like Descriptionists were attacking the other group repeatedly and quiet strongly.

I skipped the correct answer because I saw the passage associate egalitarian with prescriptionists, and that it was normal for them to be elitist about it since they were given the responsibility to take care of the language.

[Robert Carroll]

TootyFrooty,

There just isn't any basis for answer choice (A). Nowhere in the passage do I see any indication that the prescriptivists accuse the descriptivists of attacking them out of animosity. The descriptivists certainly attack the ideas of the prescriptivists, because the two factions are opposed to each other. Nowhere does it seem like the prescriptivists take that "personally" and think they're being attacked in an unfair or nasty way. And in general, disagreements don't always have to give evidence of animosity, much less evidence that animosity is the primary motivation behind the disagreement. So, as with any Must Be True question, this answer choice fails for lack of evidence from the passage.

Robert Carroll